Rethinking How to Cool the Indian Point Nuclear Plant

The Indian Point nuclear plant is quite literally in hot water: As I reported today, the plant’s current cooling system requires huge volumes of Hudson River water, and New York State instead favors the use of cooling towers to lower the impact on fish and other river organisms.

Cooling towers are common at inland plants on small rivers, where there is so little water available that using so-called once-through cooling, the system used at Indian Point, would heat the water too much. Water that passes through Indian Point’s cooling system emerges 15 degrees hotter in summer than it went in, and in the winter the temperature gain is slightly larger.

But cooling towers are very rare in locations with salt water or brackish water, like the Hudson near Indian Point. One such spot is the Hope Creek nuclear plant, near the southern tip of New Jersey.